February 2023

Three Weeks Til I Get to Uganda!

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Ronald and I at Lake Mburo National Park, June 2022

WOW, in just three weeks I’ll be in Uganda!

The time has gone so fast since the last trip (and in other ways really slowly…), and I can’t wait to get back to hands-on work. Zoom is great, but it’s not THERE. And this time my mom will be joining us, which should be a great new adventure for her.

On the agenda:

  • Staff retreat where we will have the theme VISION, PASSION, SACRIFICE
  • At least one, and probably two, trips to the farm
  • A trip west to Mbarara and Rwakobo to visit Hopeland and Wells of Hope Primary Schools
  • Graduation (the first I will be there for!)
  • Art lessons for the Literacy class girls by my mom (who is an artist)
  • Community visits
  • Staff meetings
  • Dancing
  • And, of course, a short safari stay in Lake Mburo (above)

We so appreciate your ongoing support!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS I just launched our next Large Project on DonorSee, a 10,000 liter ecobrick tank for Hopeland School. The tank is constructed using “bricks” made from recycled plastic drink bottles! We put in a similar tank at Wells of Hope in 2020 and it has helped enormously. Please visit the link and watch the video to see what it’s all about! The project is just $2,800 and we need 10% before it’s made visible to the wider DonorSee audience — we’d love your help to get us there!

Ecobrick Water Tank Projec

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If You’re In the Neighborhood…

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Dear {{contact.first_name}},

This week we welcomed Rebecca (Rosie) to Touch the Slum. She got in touch with us by way of an Expat Money friend I met when I was in Panama in December. (Gotta love networking!)

We love having visitors at the compound and get them quite often: students from Makerere University, groups from other organizations working in the area, and a few from the West who want to come check us out, like Rosie from Canada.

In this era of the internet and social media and even electronic missives like this one, it’s really wonderful to meet people in person. We post a lot (a LOT) of video online, and you get this newsletter twice a week, but there’s no way to truly understand the community of Namuwongo or the scope of our work without being there in person.

Obviously, you can’t all hop a plane and visit (although if you do, let me know and I’ll give you all the skinny on where to stay, going on safari, and more!).

My goal for this newsletter and our social media (Instagram mostly) is that you get a sense of our work. That you see where your donations are going and the difference they are making every day in the lives of the teen girls in our program. That you have confidence that we are using your hard earned money to its maximum potential to change the culture and impact individual lives.

If you don’t follow us on Instagram (or pop over there every once in awhile – you don’t need an account), I’d love for you to check it out. I post a Reel every single day (yes, every.single.day!): the farm, dancing, classes, DonorSee follow ups, visitors, day to day life, and more.

It’s the next best thing to being there!

Blessings,

Jennings

PS We have a project up for 13-year-old Irene, whose mother makes less than $1/day. She is in our Literacy Program. Irene desperately needs clothes and shoes, and we only have $140 left to fully fund the project. If you can help, remember that 100% goes to the program! Click below —->

Help for Irene!

If You’re In the Neighborhood… Read More »

Big News About Managing Director Ronald!

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There are so many things I love about this photo. Mama Santa, who is our cook and house mother extraordinaire is also Managing Director Ronald’s mother. She had him when she was 14 years old, has never been to school, and has worked hard against staggering adversity and poverty the past 26 years.

She did her best to make sure her own kids got an education. She worked hard jobs, long hours, and made tremendous sacrifices so they could have a different life than she did.

This weekend, she prayed a blessing over her first born as he got ready to take the stage and graduate with a Degree in Women and Gender Studies from Makerere University in Kampala.

I can’t imagine the emotions she felt, but I know she danced and ululated and laughed and feasted on cake as she celebrated. It was beautiful — and what an amazing example to the teen moms in her care as they witnessed the miracle.

Ronald has accomplished so much, and still has a heart for the community he grew up in. He is the most administratively gifted person I’ve ever known, and I am very fortunate to be working with him to create Touch the Slum.

We are so proud of both Ronald and Mama Santa – hit REPLY to send them messages of congratulations and I’ll pass them on!

Blessings,

Jennings

PS We have a new project up on DonorSee for resident teen mom Christine’s exit package. Christine has been with us for about a year, coming when her daughter was under a week old. She’s done wonderfully in Basic and now Advanced Tailoring, and will graduate when I’m there on April 8th. We’d love your help to get her home set up when she moves out (soon!). Just click!

Christine’s Exit Package

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Bounced Around…

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In early April 2022 we had a referral of a teen girl who was four months pregnant and homeless. (We’ll call her Angela.) Unfortunately, we had no available beds to bring her into Touch the Slum, but we were able to refer her to another program called Wamukisa.

Angela lived at Wamukisa while she was pregnant, and gave birth at Amani, who offers free childbirth to low-risk teen girls.

Unfortunately, Wamukisa doesn’t keep girls once they’ve given birth, and Amani only keeps them for labor, delivery, and a short recovery period.

That left Angela homeless once again, and she’s spent the last 6 months bouncing around between friends and evictions.

Unfortunately, this is commonplace.

Angela is homeless now and came to the compound today. Fortunately, we have a bed this time and are arranging for an at least temporary stay as we work out if she has any family she can return to.

Girls like Angela face a huge amount of fear and uncertainty. They have not been to school and have little or no family (Uganda has a huge population of orphans and the youngest population in the world, with 65% under 18). This leaves them open to exploitation and abuse, disease, and potential death on the street.

While we don’t know yet if Angela will stay with us, we try to minimize the stress and anxiety of a life of homelessness for our girls. Our residents are with us an average of a year, and don’t move out until they have the skills necessary to earn an income they can live on. They have access to Touch the Slum forever – the clinic, the daycare, even dropping by for lunch.

They have a safe place to call home, and a safe community in which to thrive.

I’ll keep you posted on Angela’s story – you are the reason girls like Angela can have a safe place to come for help, whether during an emergency or for a year.

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS You can help us help girls like Angela by becoming a monthly donor today! Just click the button – it’s quick and easy.

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

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The Girls Are In Love With Farming

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Growing up, my family farmed citrus. I remember going out to the groves with my dad or grandfather, running around the barn, afraid of the ponds because alligators lived in them. One time I had a face to face encounter with a Florida black panther… Fortunately we stared at each other down the dirt road, me terrified and him deciding if I was a snack, and then we went slowly in separate directions.

Even growing up on the Indian River, out of town, the groves were special. Quiet, peaceful, beautiful, full of life.

Four of our staff girls are learning that about Mikisa Farm. These young women are all from the slum. While full of life, the slum is anything but quiet or beautiful. It’s certainly never peaceful.

We have a dorm room set up at the farm to accommodate groups. Right now, we’re taking staff and volunteers out there because we’re in the final “set up” phase: Hoeing, spreading manure and fertilizer on the bananas and other trees, getting beds ready for seeds.

It’s a labor opportunity, not so much a learning opportunity at the moment!

But everyone LOVES it. They didn’t want to leave! I had a meeting with Ronald yesterday and he said, “It’s so quiet, there’s a breeze and fresh air, and you can see so many stars!”

We started the farm as a way to grow food for Touch the Slum. We knew we’d open up opportunities for any girls in the program who wanted to learn about farming, or who grew up in the village and missed it. But we were thinking in practical, problem solving terms.

We forgot the value of peace and quiet. Of space to think and look at the stars and laugh over a fire on a chilly night. Of pride in a physical job well done. Of the healing that happens under the wide Ugandan sky.

I can’t wait to get there next month…

Thank you all for your generous donations to our farm over the last 7 months! Tomorrow is the last day that the farm project will be up on DonorSee. If you can make a donation today to help us with these final infrastructure costs, we’d so appreciate it. 100% goes to the program!

Oh, and visit our Instagram to see videos of the work at the farm this week and the girls smiling and dancing their way through their work. Link below!

MIKISA FARM LAST CALL!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS If you or your group are in the Raleigh or Beaufort NC or Cocoa FL areas and want to donate sanitary pads for us take over next month, please REPLY to this email and we’ll coordinate with you!

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Holistic Literacy Includes Resiliance

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In the best of circumstances, being a teenager can be tough. I remember playing Barry Manilow records (yes, really!) over and over just to cry. (Oh, Mandy…) When you live in the slum, have been abused or exploited, struggle to find food, and possibly have a baby already, it’s a minefield to navigate.

Each week, on Friday, we host Strong Minds, which is an all-students gathering that then breaks up into smaller groups. Our staff, like Damalie above, lead the girls in discussion and teach strategies for resilience and healing.

On Saturday, we have Turning Point, which is open to the community and not just our girls. This public gathering is open to all questions and sometimes lasts for hours as girls have discussions on topics they aren’t told about elsewhere.

Our social worker Sarah, house mother Mama Santa, and our teachers also regularly engage the girls one-on-one to help them with struggles. Santa, Betty, Derrick, and Ronald all help with money and financial issues and questions and help the girls learn to save for their future.

No questions are off the table. They only heal when they can talk and question.

Our goal is a sustainable future, and that doesn’t just mean that a girl can work her trade. It means she can raise confident children. She can resist the kind of exploitation that targets teen girls and women in the slum because she knows her value. She doesn’t engage in behaviors that harm her or her children because she has healed.

None of this is possible without trust, without diving deep, without a shared life of joy, tears, laughter, and friendship. It takes time. It takes commitment. It takes asking hard questions and listening to hard answers. It takes a vision of the future that is both felt and shared.

I’m immensely proud of our staff, both women and men, who are committed to changing the culture surrounding the treatment of girls and women. Change is slow, but it starts with a dedicated group of young people who want a better life for themselves and their community.

Thank you for joining us in this journey. We are very grateful for your support — you are making a difference every day.

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS Teen mom Jackie’s project for hairdressing supplies is 80% funded – we just need $55 for it to be complete. We’d love your help today! Click below!

Jackie’s project!

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Girls On the Farm

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Monica helping break up the Ugandan clay soil

Last week was a big one! The team was at the farm Monday afternoon til Sunday without much internet, so I got a LOT of video today (check out Instagram over this week for those!). Monica and Fauza, who head our media team, went with Ronald and some of the lads. Everyone had to work hard to earn their keep. (It must have been fun, though, because they’re going back on Wednesday!)

Now we’re in the final stages. I have the irrigation budget in hand, which will be a big help during the Ugandan dry seasons. The gate and sign will be ordered and installed. And we’re discussing the addition of livestock.

There’s a lot of differences in livestock raising methods between the West and Africa, so we’re working out how to do it that (hopefully!) brings in the best of both worlds. We’ll start with a few dozen hens, using the garage as a coop. It will take a few months until they lay, but that will give us time to make sure we have a healthy setup and happy chickens.

We’ll follow later this year with goats, which we will use mostly for milk for the girls at the compound.

I’ve always wanted a farm — I would like one a little closer to home one day! — and am so excited to get out there NEXT MONTH and dig in the dirt. My gardening gloves are already on my “to pack” pile.

Thank you all for your donations for the farm over the last 7 months! As I mentioned last time, this project will be retired on the 15th, whether or not we reach our full funding goal. If you haven’t shared it, we’d so appreciate your word-of-mouth introduction to friends and family who may want to help as we establish Mikisa Farm for Touch the Slum.

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS I became a Jaja for the second time on Friday, which is wonderful! Congrats to my daughter and Board member Ryan and her husband Eric on their beautiful new boy!

FINAL FARM FUNDING!

PSS As always, 100% of your donations go to the project!

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Let There Be Light!

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I’ve lived in hurricane country all of my life, first in Florida and now in North Carolina, so I’m very familiar with the “WOW, is it dark when the power goes out!” feeling. We also lived in Nicaragua which has… let’s generously say an “unreliable” power grid.

Ronald and three friends are at the farm all week, so Tuesday morning my first question to him was, “It was pretty dark out there, wasn’t it?”

His reply was, “My signal is so poor out here and it’s so dark!”

But Tuesday night… voila! There was light!

Thanks to you and our generous supporters on DonorSee, we’ve now got the solar system installed. This gives us some light at the house as well as power to run the well pump. (There is a hand-pump for rainy days that don’t see a lot of power generated.) We’re also going to put a light at the entrance gate for safety.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be getting the farm project completed. It’s been about 6 1/2 months since we posted it on DonorSee and we’ve raised 88% of the funds. In just a week, we’ll be a fully functioning little farm… That’s just amazing!

We will be taking down this project on the 15th, whether or not we’re 100% funded.

We’ve got some urgent large projects that need to go up on DonorSee — an ecobrick water tank for Hopeland Primary, a well at Wells of Hope, and a culvert enlargement project at Hopeland to mitigate their flooding problems — and we can only have one large project up at a time.

If you want to contribute to this last work at the farm over the next two weeks, we’d really appreciate your support – just click the button below. Either way, we’ll keep you updated on life at Mikisa Farm, including my visit out there in March. (I can’t wait!)

Blessings,

Jennings

PS Gideon just sent me the results of the result for Hopeland’s P7 class national exams, which are a REALLY big deal. If you don’t pass those, you can’t go on to secondary school even if you have the funding. (Yeah, crazy…) THEY ALL PASSED! This is SUCH amazing news. Thank you for your support of Hopeland and Wells of Hope. You’re making a difference every day!

FINAL FARM FUNDING!

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